


Drifting

by NobleNeon



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen, Panic Attacks, brief mention of garrus vakarian - Freeform, set in ME2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-25 18:08:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16202846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NobleNeon/pseuds/NobleNeon
Summary: Shepard has a flash back to dying.





	Drifting

**Author's Note:**

> atmospheric music i was listening to while writing: https://mynoise.net/NoiseMachines/mindsEarSoundscapeGenerator.php?c=0&l=2731394138151546464400&d=0  
> seriously, listen to this while reading if you can.

Shepard felt lost. What does one do after defeating a reaper? After defeating certain death? She felt unsettled. Like too many versions of her had been crammed into the space of one.

Where was she? The Cerberus ship... right? All she could understand was the beating of her own heart as her pulse sped up, and the  _ thwump thwump thwump _ of her feet on the ground. She was running circles around the training track that encompassed the largest open room of the ship.

There was no one on the ship but her, but she knew that was wrong. The ship still felt crowded. It was as if every single particle of air had swelled up a trillion times their size. The atoms swallowed her up, and she had to struggle and push through them like a thick crowd of people.

Every breath she took felt like swallowing lead. Cold, heavy air sank into her lungs and pulled her towards the floor, yet at the same time, she was floating in weightlessness.

She ran faster, body on full alert, mind in chaos. There was crisis all around her, in her. She felt unnatural. In fact, she knew she was. She had been pieced back together, her dead flesh and frozen blood only contained the essential DNA. The rest was substituted with synthetic life. What was she?

Nothing felt real, she didn’t feel real. Shepard's eyes glazed and her mind substituted the unfocused world with an image of herself, from a birds-eye-view, sprinting around in circles. Getting faster, and faster, and faster. She saw herself trip, and suddenly she was falling through the floor. She tumbled listlessly in the vast emptiness of space, frozen in action.

She knew this feeling, and suddenly she was back on her ship, dragging Joker’s body to the escape pod. And then... a flash of cold, true fear. She was not afraid of death, no, but she was scared of leaving the galaxy behind. There was no time to think before she couldn’t anymore.

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next time Shepard awakes she’s on the floor, belly down and head kinked to the side uncomfortably. This time, though, she is no longer floating. Her heart beat is strong and slow, and the textured material of the running track grips the skin of her cheek.

Logically, she knows that she must not have been out for long. The ship is still empty, she just knows it is. She thinks that her ship is docked somewhere, but why would her crew leave her alone? It wasn’t safe.

Heart beat picking up again, Shepard picks herself up off the ground. She didn’t feel sore like she used to be after sleeping on a flat surface, and she attributes it to the synthetics weaved throughout her.

Panic attacks don’t happen often to Shepard. Never in an unsafe environment, but just as she was starting to get used to her strange crew, to earning their trust, it was inevitable. This time she was glad no one had been around. The last time, she had been unresponsive. Even to Garrus. She shuddered. Why had the Illusive Man insisted that her mind remained untouched? Surely he could've just fixed the panic attacks. Panic was a liability, panic created mistakes.

Shepard sighed, and moved over to lay on a nearby bench. Maybe she could manage sleep, after all she seemed to be exhausted. The embrace of sleep seemed much too close to the one of death these days. Her body never felt tired, she knew who to blame for that, but her mind, her mind was a different story.

As the ship hummed, her consciousness slipped away and she was back to floating. Her thoughts flowed freely. Somehow she knew she’d make it through this suicide mission. She was not afraid of dying. This time she was afraid of living again.


End file.
